1. Field
The present disclosure generally relates to computing and information technology systems, devices, and methods for collecting, managing, measuring, and tracking recyclable and waste materials and providing feedback on the material collected for the purposes of billing, compliance assurance, performance assessment, and the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many commercial organizations undertake recycling initiatives with associated goals and incentives. However, in the case of large organizations, such as where the material for recycling may be collected from a plurality of stores and locations, with today's limited information technology infrastructure it may be difficult to track how individual stores are performing, individually or relative to one another, with respect to recycling efficiency and goal compliance. A large organization that uses a distribution center for the receipt, temporary storage, and redistribution of goods and materials may be able to obtain measurements made at the distribution center that indicate the total amount of material received in a given period from stores in a chain, but with current systems it can be difficult to identify the relative contribution made by each of the different stores. In such cases, different stores may be allocated equal or proportionate credit for recycling based on the total amount of material, without regard to each individual store's actual contribution. As a result, individual stores may not be rewarded or penalized based on their actual performance, relative to organizational goals of recycling, which may tend to cause individual stores to undertake only minimal efforts and in turn tend to diminish aggregate success. In the absence of the means to adequately track recycling efforts, or in the absence of success of those efforts, some organizations and stores may chose not to implement, or to abandon, a recycling or backhauling program. Such challenges are compounded in situations where waste material takes different forms; for example, grocery organizations may have organic waste of various types, materials that are subject to deposit regulations (like deposit soda and beer bottles), and a variety of packaging materials and containers, such as cardboard boxes, glass containers, plastic containers of various sizes, shapes, and constituent materials. Each different kind of material may be subject to distinct regulations, pricing agreements, and other requirements, such that a need exists to track and manage each different material separately from other materials. However, current systems for tracking such information are inadequate, requiring manual tracking of information by untrained employees and lacking facilities for rapid, efficient collection, integration, and analysis of data of disparate types for large numbers of stores.
In situations where third party providers transport recyclables, organic waste, trash and the like for smaller organizations on the return portion of a delivery trip (referred to herein in some cases as “backhaul”), the difficulties associated with adequately tracking material returned by different stores are magnified, as owners may have no effective mechanism for obtaining information about the nature of the contents of a backhaul trip from the third party.
A need exists for methods and systems that help stores, enterprises, transport service providers and the like adequately track and characterize the material handled in streams of recyclable and waste material.